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The Terms of Peace 
In an American War Policy 



BY 

WALTER L. FISHER 



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By transf ar 
The White House. 



The Terms of Peace 
In an American War Policy 

BY 

WALTER L. FISHER 

Delivered before The Minnesota Club, May 4, 1917. 

I have been invited to Minneapolis to discuss to-night the 
proposals of the League to Enforce Peace. The discussion 
of these proposals is not only appropriate but is of the very 
greatest practical importance at this particular time. The 
immediate cause that has involved the United States in war 
to-day is that her ships are being sunk and her people killed 
while they are lawfully engaged in peaceful commerce on the 
seas ; but important as is the immediate protection of our 
national rights and of our people's lives against other nations 
who are engaged in war, this alone would not have drawn us 
into this war. Wc are at war because we believe there is a 
compelling necessity and a real opportunity "to make the 
world safe for democracy" ; to end militarism as a political 
system ; to destroy Prussianism as a national philosophy. We 
are at war, and our immediate task is to make war effect- 
ively. But if we cease for one moment to keep in mind the 
deep underlying purpose of our warfare, and the great object 
we hope and intend to accomplish by it, we shall weaken the 
very efifectiveness of our warfare. We shall be of those who 
gain battles and yet lose a war. 

Two years ago Lord Grey uttered the profound truth 
that 

"Unless mankind learns from this war to avoid war 
the struggle will have been in vain. * * * Over hu- 
manity will loom the menace of destruction. If the world 
cannot organize against war, if war must go on * * * 
the resources and inventions of science will end by de- 
stroying the humanity they were meant to serve." 



And in December of last year, in one of the most remark- 
able and significant documents that have been .published in 
Germany since the war began, Dr. Bernard Dcrnburg, for a 
time the accredited agent of Germany in this country, ex- 
pressed almost identical views: 

"It certainly sounds foolhardy to speak of a reconcilia- 
tion of nations in these times of bitterest hate when the 
slaughter of nations is at its zenith. Nevertheless it is 
necessary and inevitable. If no lasting peace comes, 
peace based on confidence alone, then inevitably there 
will come another war, and this new war can end only 
with the mutual annihilation of the nations of civilized 
Europe. Manly courage and manly strength are no 
longer the decisive factors ; unfortunately the decisive 
factor is the machine. If mankind is to give thought 
for ten years more to machines for destroying life and 
property, another war at the present rate of technical 
development will mean the end of Europe. 

"* * * International law is now a desolate heap of 
ruins, but it must be rebuilt and it must so regulate the 
relations of nations to each other that they must stand 
under its protection as free States, possessing equal rights, 
whether they be large or small. This protection must be 
exercised by the common power of all, either by force or 
by a common ban placed upon a transgressor which would 
be equivalent to barring him from intercourse with the 
rest of the world." 

Nor should we overlook the declaration of the German 
Chancellor himself which led to Dr. Dernburg's discussion of 
the internajtiQnal situation : 

"When the world at last realizes what the awful rav- 
ages in property and life mean, then a cry for peaceful 
agreements and understandings will go through all man- 
kind which will prevent in so far as it lies within human 
power the recurrence of such a tremendous catastrophe. 
This cry will be so loud and justified that it must lead to 



a result. Germany will honestly co-operate in the ex- 
amination of every endeavor to find a practical solution 
and will collaborate for its possible realization." 

President Wilson delivered a great speech when he 
stated to Congress the reasons which had compelled him to 
break off diplomatic relations with Germany, and to ask Con- 
gress to join with him in declaring the e^xistence of a state of 
war; but he delivered a far greater speech on January 22, 1917 
— a speech which, in my judgment, will live as the most im- 
portant utterance of an American President since Abraham 
Lincoln spoke on the field of Gettysburg. If he or we lose 
sight of the reasoned utterances of that address or of the 
fundamental principles he stated, we shall just to that extent 
fail to grasp the issues and the opportunities of the titanic 
struggle of which we have now become a part. Those princi- 
ples should now without delay be set forth in definite and 
practical outline, if not in every detail essential to make clear 
their application as a basis of that international re-organiza- 
tion upon which peace depends. President Wilson has no 
greater duty, no greater opportunity during his conferences 
with the envoys of the allied powers now in the United States 
than to demonstrate to them and through them the signifi- 
cance and the practical purpose of his address in January, 
when he said : 

"Difficult and delicate as these question are, they must 
be faced with the utmost candor, and decided in a spirit 
of real accommodation if peace is to come with healing 
in its wings, and come to stay. * * * -p]^^ statesmen 
of the world must plan for peace, and nations nYust adjust 
and accommodate their policy to it as they have planned 
for war and made ready for pitiless contest and rivalry. 
The question of armaments, whether on land or sea, is 
the most immediately and intensely practical question 
connected with the future fortunes of nations and of 
mankind." 



It is absolutely imperative that we shall now, in the very 
midst of this war, while we are preijaring for it and fighting 
in it, discuss the policies and formulate the plans which, in 
the words of President Wilson, are to result in "a world 
organized for justice and democracy." The plans may not 
be executed now, but their essential features must be devised 
and formulated now or they will never come into existence 
when peace is declared. 

Even last November the London Times said : 

"We agree that neutrals cannot do a better service to 
the cause of peace after the war than by the present dis- 
cussion and advocacy of a i^ractical system of the kind, 
if such a system can be devised." 

And Lord Grey declared : 

"The best work the neutrals can do for the moment 
is to try to prevent a war like this from happening again." 

If the discussion of the plans upon which a just and 
durable peace can be secured and maintained constitutes the 
most useful service which neutrals can perform in the midst 
of the war, this is also the most useful service which the 
belligerents can perform. A clear understanding of just what 
is to be the end of all the fighting can lessen the vigor of the 
fight only if there be some question of the importance and the 
justice of the end. Now that we ourselves have ceased to be 
neutral, we have no higher duty to ourselves and to the world 
than to keep our minds open, our vision clear, our speech 
free, and,auF hands busy, for the accomplishment of the great 
purpose of 'the war, and we should have no understanding or 
commitment that will prevent us from making peace our- 
selves and from urging peace on others the instant that great 
purpose can in our judgment be obtained. We at least are 
not fighting to give the Trentino to Italy, Constantinople to 
Russia, or even to restore Alsace and Lorraine to France. 



Our light is "to make the world safe for democracy". If in 
order to accomplish this it is necessary first to destroy mili- 
tarism it is all important that we shall understand of what 
militarism consists, and we must not confuse militarism with 
its results. The essence of militarism is the belief that war 
is the natural, the necessary, the normal means by which 
international differences of opinion must be adjusted; it is 
the tendency to decry and to belittle the slow processes by 
which mankind as individuals and as nations has climbed up 
out of barbarism by substituting law for force. It is the con- 
ception of the State as something above and beyond moral 
law. Militarism is not ruthlessness ; it is not cruelty; it is 
not savagery ; it is the principle from which these evils spring. 
Once believe that war is inevitable and that preparedness for 
war is the only practicable assurance of peace, the inevitable 
result is the exaltation of force, the justification of cruelty, 
the acceptance of a despotic theory of the State, more blight- 
ing in its curse than the despotism of kaiser or king or czar. 
Once cease to plan for peace and there is nothing left but to 
plan for war. If mankind is to progress, if civilization is to 
go forward, nations must be held to the same moral standards 
as are individuals, and nations must progress little by little, 
step by step, as individuals have progressed. It is as true 
of international as of national or community affairs, that the 
progress of civilization can be exactly measured by the extent 
to which law has superseded force. 

I am advocating no diminution of the vigor with which we 
should prepare for and prosecute this war. We have voted 
billions of money and authorized the training of millions of 
men. While these plans are being carried out with all the 
intelligence and energy which can be effectively applied to 
them we must not fail to see that even from the distinctively 
military point of view the formulation and announcement of 
plans for a just and durable peace is the most effective weapon 

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we can wield. The presentation by the allied powers, with the 
support of the United States, and if possible of neutral nations, 
of a plan of international re-organization that would make it 
no longer possible for the Prussian military caste to persuade 
the German people that they must fight in self-defense would 
be worth more than millions of men on the fighting lines in 
I'Vance. The great masses of the people in all the warring 
nations are sick of war. The hideous cruelty and waste 
should not continue one hour longer than is necessary to 
secure a just and lasting peace. Is not the hour about to 
strike? Peace to-day is in solution. It needs only courage 
and a just and wise proposal to precipitate it. From whom 
shall this proposal come? If, as an unnamed "high authority 
in the Balfour Commission" is reported to ha\'e said a day or 
two ago, any peace proposal now from Germany should be 
rejected in advance because it would be intended as "a sop to 
the liberty-loving portion of the world", then if we are not 
fighting to crush Germany so that we can impose on her a 
victor's terms, either we or the allied powers must offer terms 
and they must be definite enough for all the world to under- 
stand and fair enough for all the world to accept. If this is not 
the time for the formal offer of such terms surely it is time to 
consider what these terms should be. If we are fighting for 
democracy, then democracy must discuss the terms upon 
which the fight shall cease. The old processes of secret diplo- 
macy must end and they can end only by the substitution of 
free discussion which shall take place, so far as possible, be- 
fore the event and not merely after it. 

On April 2d, President Wilson said : 

"Cunningly contrived plans of deception or aggression 
carried, it may be, from generation to generation, can be 
worked out and kept from the light only within the pri- 
vacy of court= or behind the carefully guarded confi- 
dences of a nar ow and privileged class. They are hap- 

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pily impossible where public opinion commands and in- 
sists upon full information concerning" all the nations' 
affairs." 

These things are being discussed in England and in Ger- 
many, and despite a stupid censorship, some of the discussion 
reaches the United States. In the issue of "War and Peace" 
for December, 1916, there is an able discussion of the need and 
the military value of a more definite and public formulation 
of peace terms than has yet been made by the allies. I quote 
from its conclusions : 

"That the announcement now of such a project as that 
indicated by President Wilson, and the agreement of the 
nine allied nations and, if possible, the principal neutrals 
on its main outlines, a project formed now and to be 
put into execution after the war would be as definite a 
part of the conduct of the war itself as the supply of 
shells, men or money, and as definite an addition to our 
forces as is the increase of these things. * * -''' 

"That by proclaiming our intention to destroy Ger- 
man armaments without any intimation as to the means 
by which Germany in the future is to protect herself, we 
do in fact, however unintentionally, compel the Germans 
to fight for a right to have any national defense at all, 
the war becoming for them one of self-defense in the 
simplest sense ; that consequently this omission to frame 
and announce any project of post-bellum international 
arrangements is a definite addition to the force of the 
enemy — perhaps the greatest moral asset now possessed 
by the German government in securing the support of the 
German people as a whole to the prolongation of the war 
to the last possible limit of resistance ; that it is certainly 
the greatest moral asset possessed by the German mili- 
tary caste and one which unless disposed of will render 
the perpetuation of German militarism — whatever be the 
the immediate issue of the war — inevitable." 

We must not make the mistake which has so discredited 
those intellectual leaders of Germany who by their manifesto 



demonstrated their inability to see anything but the German 
point of view. We must not make the mistake against which 
Burke warned us and attempt the indictment of a whole peo- 
ple. If we hope to make any progress toward permanent peace 
we must recognize that there are Germans who are not mili- 
taristic and who sincerely desire what we desire, even though 
we may sincerely disagree as to the methods by which it is to 
be accomplished. We must welcome every approach which 
such Germans make toward a better understanding because 
our claim to infallibility is no better than is theirs, and it is 
of great importance to the world that the German people 
shall be brought to understand that militarism is not essential 
to their security or to their progress as a people. 

Let no man belittle the influence of the argument of self- 
defense in Germany. It was Lloyd George himself who, at 
Queens Hall, in July, 1908, said: 

"Look at the position of Germany. Her army is what 
our navy is to us — her sole defense against invasion. She 
has not got a two-power standard. She may have a 
stronger army than France, than Russia, than Italy, than 
Austria, but she is between two great powers who in 
combination could pour in a vastly greater number of 
troops than she has. Don't forget that, when you wonder 
why Germany is frightened at alliances and understand- 
ings and some sort of mysterious workings which appear 
in the press and hints in the Times and the Daily Mail 
* * *. Here is Germany in the middle of Europe, with 
France and Russia on either side and with a combination 
of their armies greater than hers. Suppose we had here a 
possible combination which would lay us open to inva- 
sion — suppose Germany and Russia, or Germany and 
Austria, had fleets which in combination would be stronger 
than ours, would we be not frightened, would we not arm? 
Of course we should." 

We shall not remove this fear by defeating the German 
armies in the field or by imposing upon Germany the terms 

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of peace. The English "Round Table" was right when it 
declared that "Prussianism, as a philosophy of war, will live 
until the German people themselves have rebelled against it." 
And a thoroughly posted and thoughtful American has said: 
"Germany can be made a liberal state only by her own liberals. 
No artificial liberalism imposed by the allies on a defeated 
Germany would last a month after the withdrawal of the allied 
army." 

It was not because he excused German atrocities or ac- 
cepted German militaristic theories that President Wilson 
announced his matured judgment that peace, "if it is to come 
with healing in its wings and come to stay," must first of all 
be "a peace without victory." It is said that these were but 
words and that what we need is deeds; that actions speak 
louder than words. May I suggest that words are sometimes 
deeds; and that the utterance of a speech like Lincoln's at 
Gettysburg or like Wilson's in the Senate may be as truly 
a deed as the unfurling of a standard about which men may 
rally, or the sounding of the bugle that calls them to the 
colors; and every ear that is deaf to that trumpet call, and 
every step that is taken away from that standard, lends aid 
and comfort to the enemy and lessens the chances of success 
in war and of a greater victory in peace. 

We shall do well to turn, again and again, to the decla- 
rations of President Wilson when we were yet free from the 
hurries and the hatreds of war. If they were the words of 
truth and soberness three months ago, they are as true today 
and more sober. If as Lord Eustace Percy has just declared 
"the war has resolved itself into a race between the efficiency 
of the British and American shipyards and the German sub- 
marine." this is no time for the "bitter enders" on either side 
to insist that all discussion of international re-organization 
shall be postponed until a decisive victory has been achieved. 

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In the very address which led to our declaration of the 
state of war, President Wilson said : 

"I have exactly the same things in mind now that I 
had in mind when I addressed the Senate on the 22d of 
Januarv last ; the same that I had in mind when I ad- 
dress the Congress on the 3d of February and on the 26th 
of February. Our object now as then is to vindicate the 
principles of peace and justice in the life of the world as 
against selfish and autocratic power and to set up amongst 
the really free and self-governed peoples of the world 
such a concert of purpose and of action as will hence- 
forth insure the observance of those principles." 

We will do well, therefore, to refresh our recollection of 
what the President did say on January 22d : 

"In every discussion of the peace that must end this 
war it is taken for granted that the peace must be given 
by some definite concert of power which will make it 
virtually impossible that any such catastrophe should 
ever overwhelm us again. Every lover of mankind, every 
sane and thoughtful man must take that for granted. 

* * * It is inconceivable that the people of the United 
States should play no part in that great enterprise. 

* * * They cannot in honor withhold the service to 
which they are now about to be challenged. They do 
not wish to withhold it. But they owe it to themselves 
and to the other nations of the world to state the con- 
ditions under which they will feel free to render it. That 
service is nothing less than this — to add their authority 
and their power to the authority and force of other na- 
tions to guarantee peace and justice throughout the world. 

* * * The present war must first be ended ; but w^e 
owe it to candor and to a just regard for the opinion of 
mankind to say that so far as our participation in guar- 
antees of future peace is concerned it makes a great deal 
of diiTerence in what way and upon what terms it is 
ended. * * * ^pj^g question upon which the whole 
future peace and policy of the world depends is this : Is 

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the present war a struggle for a just and secure peace or 
only for a new balance of power? If it be only a struggle 
for a new balance of power, who will guarantee, who can 
guarantee, the stable equilibrium of the new arrange- 
ment? Only a tranquil Europe can be a stable Europe. 
There must be, not a balance of powder, but a commvmity 
of power ; not organized rivalries, but an organized com- 
mon peace. 

"Fortunately we have received very explicit assur- 
ances on this point. '-'^ * * But the implications of 
these assurances may not be equally clear to all — may 
not be the same on both sides of the water. I think it 
will be serviceable if I attempt to set forth what we 
understand them to be. 

"They imply first of all that it must be a peace with- 
out victory. It is not pleasant to say this. I beg that I 
may be permitted to put my own interpretation upon it 
and that it may be understood that no other interpreta- 
tion was in my thought. I am seeking only to face reali- 
ties and to face them without soft concealments. Victory 
would mean peace forced upon the loser, a victor's terms 
imposed upon the vanquished. It would be adopted in 
humiliation, under duress at a tolerable sacrifice, and 
would leave a sting, a resentment, a bitter memory upon 
which terms of peace would rest, not permanently, but 
only as upon quicksand. Only a peace between equals 
can last; only a peace the very principle of which is 
equality and a common participation in a common benefit. 
The right state of mind, the right feeling between nations, 
is as necessary for a lasting peace as is the just settlement 
of vexed questions of territory or of racial and national 
allegiance. * * * 

"And the paths of the sea must alike, in law and in 
fact, be free. The freedom of the seas is the sine qua non 
of peace, equality and co-operation. * * * Difficult 
and delicate as these questions are, they must be faced 
with the utmost candor and decided in a spirit of real 
accommodation if peace is to come with healing in its 

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wings and come to stay. * * * The statesmen of the 
world must plan for peace and nations must adjust and 
accommodate their policy to it as they have planned for 
war and made ready for pitiless contest and rivalry. The 
question of armaments, whether on land or sea, is the 
most immediately and intensely practical question con- 
nected with the future fortunes of nations and of man- 
kind. * * * 

"And in holding out the expectation that the people 
and government of the United States will join the other 
civilized nations of the world in guaranteeing the perma- 
nence of peace upon such terms as I have named, I speak 
with the greater boldness and confidence because it is 
clear to every man who can think that there is in this 
no breach in cither our traditions or our policy as a na- 
tion, but a fulfillment rather of all that we have professed 
or striven for. 

"I am proposing, as it were, that the nations should 
with one accord adopt the doctrine of President Monroe 
as the doctrine of the world : That no nation should seek 
to extend its policy over any other nation or people, but 
that every people should be left free to determine its own 
policy, its own way of development, unhindered, unthreat- 
ened, unafraid, the little along with the great and 
powerful. 

"I am proposing that all nations henceforth avoid en- 
tangling alliances which would draw them into compe- 
titions of power, catch them in a net of intrigue and selfish 
rivalry, and disturb their own affairs with influences in- 
truded from without. There is no entangling alliance in 
a concert of power. They all unite to act in the same 
sense and with the same purpose all act in the common 
interest and are free to live their own lives under a com- 
mon protection. 

"I am proposing government by the consent of the 
governed ; that freedom of the seas which in international 
conference after conference representatives of the United 
States have urged with the eloquence of those who are 

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the convinced disciples of liberty ; and that moderation 
of armaments which makes of armies and navies a power 
for order merely, not an instrument of aggression or of 
selfish violence. 

"These are American principles, American policies. 
We can stand for no others. And they are also the princi- 
ples and policies of forward-looking men and women 
everywhere, of every nation, of every enlightened com- 
munity. They are the principles of mankind and must 
prevail." 



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